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The Most Inappropriate Murals from Parks and Recreation

The return of NBC's Parks and Recreation for a third season on January 20 also brings back one of television's best running gags: the intricate murals displayed on the wall of the town hall commemorating the bloody, morally repugnant, and laugh-out-loud history of Pawnee, Indiana, the fictional town where Parks takes place.

Series writer Norm Hiscock and production designer Ian Phillips reveal the comedy mind-set behind the creation of the tastefully tasteless art. (Click Enlarge for a closer look)

Pawnee Zoo
"Sometimes they come out of the episodes. I wrote the Pawnee Zoo episode—we were talking about the history of the zoo, and the writer Dan Goor actually came up with putting the Jew in there. It just made us laugh, and we thought, 'Why not do a mural and put it up for that episode?' It seemed to fit, and we shot it, but I think we ended up cutting it from the show." —Norm Hiscock